An Obsessive Abroad

Possibly the best part of having a highly obsessive mind, if there is a best part, has to be the consistent gathering of stimuli and observation, both conscious and subconscious.  At its best, it makes the world an amazing, intriguing place.  At it's worst, it yields over-stimulation  overload, the "thousand-yard stare", and eventually meltdown.  

Never are the polar opposites of this "gift" more apparent than when traveling abroad.  Everything is different in some way.  It's glorious, a feast for the mind disguised in often overlooked minutiae.  The grocery store alone is a wonderland of minute differences.  It's glorious.

London.  One word says what an entire language could never contain.  Leicester Square is a strange mix of heaven and hell, rapture and torture for the obsessive mind.  It's a people watcher's paradise and a crowd-phobic's nightmare.  Sounds, smells, languages, clothes, shoes, wireless devices, advertising, architecture, the list goes on forever.  To the obsessive mind, no performance art has provided a better show.  

On the other side of the coin, it is complete sensory overload.  The list of folks I want "in my space" is short.  The great unwashed hoard in the shoulder-to-shoulder spaces of The Tube combined with the swirling press of humanity in the square gave my coping skills a thorough shaking out.  

It was glorious, a feast for the senses.  I'm not so sure I consider OCD a disability any more.  I'm starting to think it's a superpower.

Shhhh....It'll be our secret.